Why U2 became bigger than The Bunnymen

[crystal89]

I've been giving this a bit of thought as clearly both bands heyday was the 1980s, though U2's best album is Achtung Baby.

There's no doubt that the bunnymen write better songs but the main difference is that the production values on the U2 albums are head and shoulders above anything the Bunnymen have done, perhaps Evergreen production wise is the closest, although Heaven up Here and Ocean Rain get close.

I've always had the impression that the Bunnymen were produced by their mate Tommo and his pal Curly because they couldn't be bothered to find anyone else. U2 get Brian Eno, Daniel Lanois and Steve Lilywhite.

One similarity is that both the bands albums are pretty spotty, but U2 made better song choices for singles and actually promoted their records a bit better than The Bunnymen ever did.

[Mr. Brian]

I've been giving this a bit of thought as clearly both bands heyday was the 1980s, though U2's best album is Achtung Baby.

There's no doubt that the bunnymen write better songs but the main difference is that the production values on the U2 albums are head and shoulders above anything the Bunnymen have done, perhaps Evergreen production wise is the closest, although Heaven up Here and Ocean Rain get close.

I've always had the impression that the Bunnymen were produced by their mate Tommo and his pal Curly because they couldn't be bothered to find anyone else. U2 get Brian Eno, Daniel Lanois and Steve Lilywhite.

One similarity is that both the bands albums are pretty spotty, but U2 made better song choices for singles and actually promoted their records a bit better than The Bunnymen ever did.

They started at about the same time. U2 had better PR for sure. It's kind of a chicken and egg thing. You need to sell albums to sell tickets but you have to sell tickets to sell albums. U2 put in the work and toured extensively in the US. That makes a big difference. By 1988 U2 had done 5 huge US tours. Bunnymen by contrast would just do a handful of dates in the span of a couple of weeks. When I saw them in 1987 when they were at their biggest in the US for Lips Like Sugar, Dancing Horse was a college radio staple, they were playing an auditorium at a University while U2 were playing arenas. This was also the MTV days, the Bunnymen never really took off there. The videos they did put out weren't as slick as U2 videos.

[fat cherry]

Ah, the old chestnut, and can I resist, nope. And you're both right more or less.

I think buns arrived fully formed and peaked within four albums, but couldn't be arsed with the publicity stuff, or the endless touring - and when that eventually beckoned they caved. And they never had a really killer pop song, as didn't led zepplin but they did the other thing.

Yoots played a blinder technically - tour tour tour, say nice things to the press, Bonos appropriation of just about everything as an influence however isincere it sounds to me, obviously works, singing all that uplifting bollocks, self doubt, war, and sad stuff that people can hang something onto, making half decent videos (almost all buns are crap, or just awful) .

DIdn't like achtung baby that much - first track in I thought, this is brill then they just reverted to what is now standard U2 stuff - having said that, One is a great song.

Tommo & Curly did a good job with those four albums - if you compare then side by side with the yoots, especially as OR was essentially self produced. When they did work with superstar producers thats when it all went tits up, though that album sold more in the states (did it not?) and though Evergreen is a great comeback album the steady decline since shows , well you know.

Oh and Live Aid.

Though for me - saw U2 on the War tour at Hammersmith Palais - Bono moaning every time someone switched on the smoke machine, and preaching blah blah blah. Week or so later, Bnns on the same stage, all in a staright line across, backlit and swamped in the stuff, no contest.

[fat cherry]

And the record company, can't help they'd have been better with someone else (hindsight coupled with a bit of what the fuck do I Know), and Rob Dickens sounds an awful bloke. He crops up in a few bios I've read and he never comes off very well. V successful chap though.

And the manager. U2s always with them, earning what they earn etc. Drummond sounds good fun from a distance and fro the early days of hey you look at us aren't we funny, and then wasn't it Durran Durran's management company or something. Can't remember. Though I understand they did alright for themselves. Now where was I?

[Mr. Brian]

Every now and then someone gets lucky and is at the right place at the right time but that's the exception. It takes more, much more to be "big" than just writing the "best" songs. I used to be active in my local music scene and I saw over and over again how bands with really great songs played to no one except bartenders and their girlfriends or maybe the same core 50 people for years. They had no marketing skills whatsoever and really didn't spend the time and money to record a really good album. That's what a trustworthy manager usually arranges. You aren't going to get big playing at 2-3 pubs every month in your hometown. Mac wanted to be big and he split just as they were starting to break in the US. That pretty much ended the momentum. Then they reformed in 1997 to much fanfare and Mac basically did the same thing.

[Mr. Brian]

Tommo & Curly did a good job with those four albums - if you compare then side by side with the yoots, especially as OR was essentially self produced. When they did work with superstar producers thats when it all went tits up, though that album sold more in the states (did it not?) and though Evergreen is a great comeback album the steady decline since shows , well you know.

Oh and Live Aid.

Yeah Live Aid really boosted U2. Say what you will about Bono but he can work a room/stadium.

I'm going off some of the chart data I compiled http://villiersterrace.com/charts.htm
Ocean Rain was the 2nd best charting album for them on on the Billboard 200 It seemed everyone in college in the 80s in the US had Songs To Learn and Sing but that was my circle at the time. Having Dancing Horses in a John Hughes movie soundtrack helped. Overall it didn't seem to sell to the mainstream though. I believe the Grey Album was the biggest selling, highest charting Bunnymen album likely due to MTV. Evergreen really didn't do anything in the US except for a single on the Modern Rock charts but there was much excitement over their return with sold out shows, etc.

[Dr Cheese]

Back in the day the vast majority of my mates and I were into rock and heavy metal, you know the drill, Zeppelin, Floyd, Lizzy, Motorhead et all and whereas I branched out a bit into punk and whatnot they mostly stuck with what they knew, the difference was they almost all liked U2 and poured scorn upon my fondness for the Bunnymen. U2 are the populist vote I guess while the Bunnymen were willfully more obscure hence Mac having to sell burgers out the back of a van in a side street in Norris Green while Bono dines on finest caviar in a Michelin starred resto in that London.

I may have made the last bit up, it's been a long week.

[NOF]

The above posts are spot on. Basically, it can be summed up in three points:

-Touring the US constantly.
-Live Aid.
-Luck.

They did it, and fair play to them. Just because you write the best songs doesn't mean you're going to be the biggest band in the world. Otherwise Killing Joke would be headlining stadiums.

[Mr. Brian]

The above posts are spot on. Basically, it can be summed up in three points:

-Touring the US constantly.
-Live Aid.
-Luck.

They did it, and fair play to them. Just because you write the best songs doesn't mean you're going to be the biggest band in the world. Otherwise Killing Joke would be headlining stadiums.

Right. I don't think the Bunnymen were good at the business side of the music business.

[NOF]

Having someone like Bill Drummond as a manager was undoubtedly very exciting, but whether he knew the ins and outs of the industry, I doubt it.

Not touring the US was probably the biggest mistake. If you read the histories of the Cure, New Order and Depeche Mode, they toured the hell out of the States at that time, which led to play on MTV. And all three groups can comfortably sell tickets for 2,000 seated venues nowadays, long past their prime.

The Bunnymen could have been in the same position.

What I've often wondered is, if Mac had stayed with them, would they have recorded Reverberation and split anyway? Or would they have limped on throughout the 90's, jumping on trends (the way Electrafixion jumped on the grunge bandwagon, Evergreen Britpop)?

[Mr. Brian]

It seems like Mac was always ready to bail and go off on his own when they found commercial success. He did it in the 80s and again with WAYGTDWYL in the 90s after the huge success of Evergreen.

[NOF]

And I wonder if his sidelining of Will is punishment for carrying on with the band after Mac had left?

[fat cherry]

and speakingof the yewts, there's a big Joshua Tree anniversary spread in Mojo this month with new interviews with the band and producers recalling the time. Then as now, Bonios full of self deprecation and positivity - whereas Mac was still easily led into slagging off other bands - which I think prob went down better than justy being a gobshite. The article full of typical bonoisms though "we were street fighters rather than boxers'. Also the appropriation of 'influences that I'm not sure I can hear - he says of the album "I can hear some of the artists I would've been listening to, whether it was Nick Cave or Echo and the Bunnymen. I can hear it in the lyrics and rather annoyingly, in the singing......' and so it goes on.

[Mr. Brian]

And I wonder if his sidelining of Will is punishment for carrying on with the band after Mac had left?

I think Reverberation was Will's revenge for Mac running off and trying to be a solo star

[black francis]

The missus and my son will be seeing U2 soon. I politely declined but I talk shit behind their backs.